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Tuesday, January 5, 2016

Etude House – Play 101 Multi Stick Review

Makeup trends are always changing, and I think we had three major ones this year. Contouring, instagram brows, and strobing.

Now, Korea has it's own makeup style – it's very fresh and light, and emphasizes glowy skin. I'd say they strobed before strobing ever became popular in the west. However, contouring has just made it's way over here. Earlier this year, Missha released a set of cream blushes and contouring sticks, and Etude House has also followed suit – creating an entire multi-colour line with their multi-use Play 101 formula. You'll know the Play 101 pencils are very multipurpose – they can be used as eyeliner, shadow, blush and lip colour, and the multi-sticks (minus the foundation) are no exception.

Etude House released four foundation shades, as well as five multi-colour sticks to go along with the Play 101 pencils. I received the foundation shade in 02, which is a perfect match for my fair yellow toned skin (ok, it's slightly pink, but you can't tell once it's been blended in). There's also a shading contouring stick in a medium brown shade, and four blush colours, coral, pink, purple, and orange. A duel contouring and highlighting pencil was also included. The shades are a slightly darker brown than the shading stick, and very light, almost white colour to highlight with. The cream formulas go on quite dewy at first, but quickly dry down to a satiny, almost powder finish (honestly, this might just be because my skin is so dry this winter). They're easy to blend out with either the Etude House brush, or a sponge. I prefer to use a sponge as I feel I have slightly more control. When I use a brush, I blend everything out too much and lose the definition!

Formula wise, I both love and hate these? The shading stick (#11) is amazing – it's smooth, easy to blend (almost too easy, so it's best to use a light hand or it may get everywhere) and doesn't go powdery or patchy on my dryer skin. The same goes for the darker end of the duel pencil.

The foundation is a bit harder to use. Maybe it's because I use it all over my face, where as the shading stick is really only used on the sides? Either way, I find it wears off patchily, and feels a bit drying after an hour or two (when I touch my face, it feels like it's turned into a powder, vs the original creamy consistency). The easiest way to combat the wear down and dryness is to bring a facial mist. It helps to eliminate the dryness, add a bit of glow so I don't look powdery or cakey, and just overall renews the foundation throughout the day. Going without a mist though... I end up with weird, cakey foundation patches along with foundation-less patches. I think, because this dries to a more powdery finish, it might be better for oily skin, as I've had similar wear problems with liquid to powder foundations. I'm gonna blame this on my skin, and not the foundation formula itself.

The duo pencil is another love-hate affair for me. The contouring side is amazing. Easy to use, easy to blend (again, too easy to blend, so be careful or blend get it everywhere). It's great for a contouring noob like me. The light, highlighting shade though... It just sinks into my pores. Ie. it highlights too much, nuff said. On that note though, it does work really well on my cheekbones and chin, where I don't have any almost invisible pores for it to define. I don't know if it's the formula itself that causes this, or if it's just because the colour is so light (ie. foundation that sinks into pores doesn't matter, because it's the same colour as the surrounding skin, but this is white, so it doesn't match and only emphasizes?). This is sort of fixed with some facial mist though, or at least fixed to the point of being wearable.

Moving onto blush. This is another multi-use shade like the Play 101 pencils. You can use it on the lips, cheeks and eyes. I received #13 which I only like to use on my cheeks and eyes. It's slightly dryer than the foundation or shading stick, so it doesn't crease on my eyelids, and it doesn't settle into my pores like the highlighting pencil. On my lips though... it's a bit chalky. It'll work as a lip colour for some people, but definitely not for me. While there is glitter in the formula, it doesn't show up at all on my cheeks. Wear time is only a few hours though, which seems to be the usual for most of the cream cheek formulas I've tried (Tarte, Maybelline, and another Etude House product).

Since I'm not the best at makeup, I'm not going to show you how to use these. Pony has already done it for you, and she's far better (and prettier to look at) than me. She created two tutorials specifically for Etude House. There's also a picture tutorial in case you don't want to watch a video.